According to one aspect of this invention a novel assembly has been developed for educational purposes and also for teaching a child fine motor skills. This educational and training assembly includes a housing having slide projection means and slides which are either blank or which merely have line drawings upon them. The child may color the slides for subsequent projection. Prior to the development of this invention, tracing and coloring devices were well known in the art. The most common example is the coloring book and box of crayons. Other devices have included tracing paper of various sorts which include an easel for supporting the tracing paper in a desired location as well as compartments for storing the marking devices. One such example is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,427,614. It is also well know in the art that a drawing may be made upon a sheet of plastic, such as Mylar, for projection via means of an overhead projector. However, applicant is not aware of any prior art where a child can be instructed to draw upon a blank slide, or a slide provided with line drawings, the slide subsequently being projected by a more or less conventional slide projector so that the child can clearly see his drawing in an enlarged scale.
According to another aspect of this invention slides may be provided having unique machine readable indicia. These slides may have photographic images thereon, they may have line drawings thereon which may be subsequently drawn upon, or they may be blank slides for subsequent drawing. A sound track media, associated with a novel slide projector housing, will permit the recording and/or playback of a story or message associated with each slide, there being means for identifying each slide, and audio recording and playback means for recording a message on the sound track media associated with each slide and/or playing back a message for each identified slide. In the prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 3,389,626 discloses a slide wherein sound track grooves are formed on the slide. U.S. Pat. No. 3,484,160 discloses a phonographic record associated with a plurality of slides mounted on a common frame. U.S. Pat. No. 4,758,485 also discloses slides wherein a strip of laser recording material is disposed on each slide, the laser recording material having prerecorded information concerning each particular slide. U.S. Pat. No. 4.014,604 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,765,734 each disclose a slide provided with a magnetic strip upon which a message or alpha-numeric information may be encoded. However, applicant is not aware of any prior art where slides may be randomly placed within a slide projector, the slides bearing machine readable indicia so that may be identified, and either a prerecorded sound track being played by the projector, or where a message or story about the identified slide may be recorded in a sound track media associated with the projector in such a manner that when the specific slide is again placed in the projector that message or story may be played back.